The Simple Separation Will Not Come Between Us
by The Circus
Summary: The choice is simple. Real, and No John. Or Not Real, and John. For a prompt that says 'John dies and Sherlock loses himself in his Mind Palace'. Rated T for mentions of violence and character deaths.


**If you've found your way over from SherlockBBC, enjoy.**

* * *

He has five senses. He chooses to categorise what he is sensing right now, to try and order it in his brain, because this is not happening.

Smell: Blood- bitter, sharp, Concrete-rock, The Refuse of The Alley- faeces of animals, rubbish in the bins, the decay of humanity.

Taste: The air, and the breeze, his own blood.

The two above mix into one.

Hearing: Desperate panting breaths, his own, John{home}'s, Bubbles of blood, his own, John{precious, unimaginably (for others) so}'s, London screaming, keening, or is that him?

Sight: John{care} cradled in his arms, shaking slightly, most likely shock, paling under his skin (dying) his own hands shaking where they cling to John{_amazing, brilliant, _conductor}, most likely shock, red, red, red, he's never hated a colour more in his life, orange of the lone streetlamp across John{oxymoronic, but imperfectly perfect}'s face, and melted eyes.

Touch: JohnSherlock {they're an amalgamation, lost} shivers rolling through both of them, wet blood and cold, John{doctor, precise}'s hands on his face, mindlessly stroking, his fingertips (the most sensitive place on the human body, the most nerve endings) tattered (that is a good word, tattered, he's in strips) in John{soldier, steel, carbon}'s shirt (it is a warm summer night, no need for a jacket) holes in their bodies.

"Is...is this w...what getting shot... felt like" he forces out between the tidal volume of his lungs. Not much tidal volume. More tidal volume than John {important} has. He has to bend over so he is face to face with John{waiting} so that the words can leave his mouth and stutter between them before eroding into photons.

"Sherlock" John{warm, metaphorically, soon he will be cooling} says, "We... have... been shot." He speaks between his teeth.

We. How accurate. Two different bullets in two different directions. They'd both jumped in front of the other.

John{a good man} stops. He shouldn't, (should, he's lost too much blood) but he does.

"John" says Sherlock, everything in his voice, times present and absent, and stops too.

* * *

_Not really. His heart[John] is still beating and his lungs still functioning. Nerves still firing. But he is not there. He is with John{hidden dangerous commanding when necessary} in the Mind Palace. He is in John{open gentle accepting}'s room, which is everywhere, and John{friend} is there, standing in front of the usually blank windows that are curtained with shock blankets and now look out on to LondonKhandahar. He is everything that he is, whole as Sherlock sees him and no-one else does. Whole and cracked- oxymoronic, paradoxical, John{voice in the middle of the night} like the product of a dream, or weaponised goodness._

_Sometimes, when he hears John{war torn} in the dark small hours crying and muttering in a language he can't understand (Dari, he is informed when he asks on the forth morning of their knowing, a form of Persian)he plays the violin soft and subtle, long vibrating notes drawn out, no melody except the constant one in his head. He takes the squeaks of John's bed as his metronome and as John{In Arduis Fidelis} drifts, so does he. _

_John{essential, conventionally indescribable}'s essential stats are this:_

_Age, forty two. Height, five foot six. Hair, blonde and ash and grey. Eyes, brown and blue (depends), Army doctor, the A+E specialist on the Medical Emergency Response Team, GP, scarily good shot, children like him, some adult fear him, likes winding Mycroft up, doesn't take nonsense. Likes tea, Mrs Hudson, waited three years in a useless mourning for a lying word taking man, would die for those he loves (love, such an imprecise word,). He is dying for those he loves. But that is outside, and he's never going back again if John is not there._

_Something small and glittering wings buzzes._

* * *

"Sherlock!" DS Sally Donovan shouts as she round the corner, cursing her heels. She stops.

The sight before her is surprisingly beautiful. The pool of red surrounding the pair on the ground, the sodium glow. John's head tilted back, throat bared and Sherlock lying over the smaller man, body as a late shield. They are dead.

"Lestrade" she says quietly into the crackle of the radio. "Get here. Now."

He is there two minutes later. He too stops and looks at the SherlockJohn person in the middle of the alley.

"Christ" he says, and rubs a hand over his eyes. The image stays the same.

"Look how they are" Sally says, still quiet. "I think they were trying to protect each other."

"Christ" Lestrade repeats and steps closer funeral procession wise. They are both limp, not yet soon enough for rigor mortis to have set in. "Get forensics here." He crouches down, runs an untouching hand over the shape of the bod(y)ies. "Sally" he says. She is still on the radio. "Sally!" he repeats as she hurries, summoned by the urgency in his voice. "He's breathing, Sherlock is breathing"

"God, so he is." The first lot of forensics start to arrive at the head of the alley, and a black car draws up smoothly, understated and ostentatious.

"Leave him" says Mycroft Holmes as his younger brother breathes less and less. "He will not want to be here."

The polished man kneels down, knees cracking slightly, one hand on the handle of his umbrella. He gently turns Sherlock over to reveal his face, blank, closed eyes, peaceful for the first time any of them have seen. Despite being lax, his hands refuse to let go of John's, the skin between them soldered together with iron.

Sherlock's breathing stops. There is no pulse in his wrists, his throat.

"Good" Mycroft says, and rises. "Good."

"Good?" Sally twists her face in disgust. "He's just died in front of you, bloody stopped, and you say good? Freak." She spits the word at him and then her face crumples. Lestrade steps forward to be beside her shoulder.

"Yes Detective Sergeant Donovan. Good. Because if there is one thing I know about my brother, it is that he is less than half without John. No John, no Sherlock. Sherlock would not want to be Sherlock without John." Mycroft sort of sniffs, and tilts his head like a crow. "There is a difference between a great man and a good one. They are, were, excuse me, the separating line."

The street lamp buzzes.

* * *

_Age is irrelevant. Right now, he feels old, so he is. It doesn't matter. He has John{life}, and Chemistry, and Music and the bees. _

_He has five senses. This is what he is sensing right now:_

_Smell: Pollen, clover, the air- fresh._

_Taste: The first of the honey, taken off the comb._

_The two above mix into one._

_Hearing: life, the buzzing of the bees, John{writer} beside him, the creaking of the trees._

_Sight: The Sussex Downs, rolling before them, the whitewashed hives, their bungalow tucked into the corpse of trees, Gladstone ambling around the flower beds, John{honey smeared mouth} beside him, the light soft and open, the swing chair under the oak tree. A cloud in the shape of a crown._

_Touch: The breeze on his face, John{there}'s un-gloved hand in his un-gloved hand, cells on cells._

* * *

**Hope you liked it OP. Recently, I seem to be on a 'kill off my main characters fest'. I won't apologise. It's fun.**_  
_


End file.
